New Years has come and gone & your humble (ever aspiring to be) blogger (aspiring to be HUMBLE, that is.) Well, she was pooped out after meeting her Advent Challenge which (by God’s grace) she managed a post-a-day (the whole of Advent.) Sure, some days a pic did it with a few wee words, but hey, a post’s a post? right?

(YAAAY! KAZAAAM I am daMAM!! : ) … oops, back to humble blogging…

The ideas drafty-notebook has a few jottings, but alas, nothing going zip-zig-zang, so today what has zinged will hopefully wing your thoughts a little upward…

…to the stars. It’s been cloudy in these parts, so they’ve been hiding the last few nights, but they’re there. ‘Tis comforting to look up and see them twinkling.

Ah, then there’s the moon. Shining bright or just a sliver, it’s cool to see moonlight reflecting through the trees. That’s a picture in my head I’ve always wanted to paint – if only I could paint (like, with no talent? I tend to drawing stick figures & smiley faces. My nieces & family may love my little faces, but high art they are not! : )

“If we look at the makeup of the word disaster, dis-aster, we see dis, which means separation, and aster, which means star. So dis-aster means separation from the stars. When we are separated from the stars, the sea, each other, we are in danger of being separated from God…

We need to remember that the house of God is not limited to a building that we usually visit for only a few hours on Sunday. The house of God is not a safe place. It is a cross where time and eternity meet, and where we are – or should be – challenged to live more vulnerably, more interdependently. Where, even with the light streaming in rainbow colours through the windows, we can listen to the stars.” Madeleine L’Engle (from Glimpses of Grace)

hmmn…

Have you ever listened to the stars? or a waterfall? or a sunrise? No, I am not a new-age, Mother-Earth, Birkenstock wielding zonkie (so I wear Birkenstocks with my MBA blazers, so what? they are very comfy shoes for battered ankles.)

Back to listening and appreciating CREATION. We build walls around ourselves, masoned with our i-gadgets, computers, media outlets… and we forget to look up. To look around. To look down with an upward-in perspective.

We forget to listen. Sometimes we’re afraid of silence – we immediately block it out when we get in our cars or get home and blast our music, tvs, Netflix or whatever.

But, get this!?! If we can listen to a waterfall (like, notice the beauty of it) & listen to the stars (hear them twinkling in the beauty of silence) then maybe we can hear the still, small voice of God within us, calling us “Beloved” … and so become Beloved to others.